Friday, August 24, 2018

Available in exclusive speakeasy boutiques in the Big City or from scattered and secretive breeders who run illicit creature mills in the countryside, domesticated dungeon creatures offer a variety of perks (and drawbacks) for the career-delver. Long sneered at by adventurers of the old guard as an unnecessary crutch, these specialized creatures are much sought-after by fashion conscious murderhobos of today. As a result, they are frequently expensive as hell.

d12
1. Liberal applications of costly ant musk secures loyalty of six-pack of chihuahua sized ants, disproportionately strong, ferocious fighters, trained to respond to three commands: kill, carry, run, refuse to take food or water upon purchase, die 2d4 days later
2. Perpetually famished shovel-tusked dungeon swine, capable of digesting most matter, useful for light tunneling, chewing through doors, chests, lock boxes, etc, dog-like intellect
3. Black pterodactyls bond voluntarily with human hosts who offer a shoulder to perch on and provide ample corpses for feasting, can squawk out a few words in most dungeon languages, sometimes at random
4. Heavily armored, dungeon armadillos like nothing more than to delouse reeking human adventurers, frustrate the efforts & chase off dungeon vermin, good-natured, insectivorous, when hand reared believe themselves to be human, enjoy little hats/outfits when provided
5. Compact dungeon cows produce ample highly nutritive "milk" for lengthy subterranean sojourns, capable of living off lichen, moss, mold, fungus
6. Rope tail monkeys sport 50' long prehensile tails, scramble off to advantageous moorings as needed, mighty hands lock in unfailing grip, capable of supporting full-sized human in full gear, 1 in 6 chance of going berserk, attacking everyone for every hour spent without using tail, eat special fruit preserve rations, also quite costly
7. Decorative land lobsters assume attractive/majestic positions atop helms, sense air with hyper-sensitive antennae, detect evil/magic as per spells once each then dies, it's amazing what they charge for a satchel of lobster chow
8. Cyclops owls warn their masters of distant threats using telescopic vision, emit various screeches for different types of danger, downside: you must carry/maintain large supply of living mice
9. Glow-bats provide mobile illumination as per flying torch, must consume/metabolize one gold piece every five minutes of active duty
10. Eye mites must be introduced directly to the optic nerve, where they nestle into permanent occupancy, in exchange for small amount of optic fluid they provide once daily intrusive visions of what's on the other side of the door
11. Rice puddings: lumpy, fist-sized white masses w/curiously dry exterior, not unpleasant to the touch, scour the body human body of delicious filth each rest period then hide in boot, refreshing, rejuvenating, heals minor wounds once daily
12. Surgeon spiders use anesthetic venom, skilled fangs & spinnerets to heal light wounds twice each day in exchange for a non-disabling (but still lightly injurious) meal of bodily fluids, like to hang out on host's head on the lookout for major trouble, in which case they will flee (caveat emptor!)

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Swollen with loot and experience levels from countless adventures, the party has achieved pseudo-medieval fame. Visiting civilization has become a pain in the ass.

d12
1. Small children gather to follow party around town, relentless, scatter momentarily if rebuked only to regroup, plead for demonstrations of legendary powers, displays of famous swords, spare silver pieces, right there in harm's way when the old arch-villain launches ambush
2. Romantic prospects gather at the Ol' Tavern, throw selves at party members, circulate claims of love children/vows of betrothal/preexisting marital arrangements, discarded paramours of these loyal fans wait in the wings, fomenting vengeance
3. Grifters, con men, shysters attracted like magnets, duel one another in the streets for privilege of taking a crack at screwing over adventurers
4. New, exorbitant adventuring tax proposed, ratified in record time by ever-corrupt city government, shadowy revenue agents rumored to be high-level badasses
5. Hounded by speed-painting pseudo-medieval paparazzi, operate under the influence of cheap potions of haste, criminal charges filed if irritated adventurer damages expensive art supplies, crappy portraits showing up all over the market place, sell like hotcakes
6. Word travels to nearby planes of existence, stokes interest of petty gods & demons looking to strike bargains with local muscle to enact their earthly ambitions
7. Assassins, repo agents of monstrous clients duel one another in the streets for first crack at the adventurers
8. Imposters ape adventurers signature looks, look just like popular portraits (see entry 5), commit petty offenses, scams throughout city, law enforcement issue polite requests for voluntary surrender while waiting for super-tough special forces to muster for arrest if necessary
9. Old friends, relatives of dubious provenance come out of the woodwork for taste of adventurers' largesse, cite time-honored tradition of hospitality, whine loudly, publicly, embarrassingly if spurned
10. Invitations to public appearances, high society functions proliferate, inevitable atmosphere of condescending snootiness, feel like zoo animals for entertainment of noblesse, especially party barbarian
11. Adventurers heaped with fake adulation, fake respect, fake courtesy, fake friendship, underlying resentment palpable
12. Adventurers pursued for endorsement of various products, guilds, mystery religions, ideologies, fighting schools, etc, lucrative yet humiliating, no XP

Sunday, August 19, 2018

d12
1. Uptick in giant tunneling worm activity since humanoids discovered they are unfailingly attracted to a singular drum beat
2. Earth Elemental Civil War enters its 33rd generation, inches ever closer to the surface
3. Inevitable primordial superstructure failure now cascading out of control, level 11 recently smashed into level 12, rage, displacement, intra-dungeon warfare heating up even as the place crumbles
4. Pitch, yaw, and roll controls for keeping dungeon level have fallen into the hands of the mischievous puny humanoids, location of Dungeon Control Room known only to them
5. Colony of colossal paleogean dragons hibernating together between crust and mantle finally beginning to stir, still yawning, stretching, discussing approaches to ruination of campaign world
6. Huge, grotesquely muscled trans-dimensional warriors gated in to replace unreliable humanoid forces turned out to be unexpectedly dense, difficult to dispel, underpinnings strained to breaking upon sudden arrival of incalculable weight, dungeon being drawn core-ward
7. Microscopic dungeon mites multiplied exponentially due to unforeseen side effect of experimental death gas released by sorcerer on level 9, masses of mites now visible to naked eye, eating everything
8. That kaiju egg beneath the dungeon, hatching for the past several decades, enters final stage
9. Semi-sentient tectonic plate now responding to directions given by deranged sorcerer who's learned to speak Tectonese
10. Sudden shift in subterranean natural laws due to magic feedback, underground waterfall now goes up, catastrophic erosion underway
11. Artificial intelligence responsible for dungeon upkeep has gone off the rails HAL 9000-style
12. For centuries the industrious humanoids have waged an economic struggle against their employer-oppressors and now by policy only do shoddy work with the cheapest possible materials

Sudden Fissure sub-table
d6
1. pit: 3d6 feet wide, 1d12x10 feet deep
2. pit, semi-bottomless, eventually fall up out of a well in dungeon in adjacent dimension
3. opens into chamber full of one million terrified bats
4. as per entry 1 plus copious poof of toxic gas
5. as per entry 4 plus surrounding floor cracks 20 feet in all directions, will collapse in 10 seconds
6. Satan (or local equivalent) rears up from below, wreathed in flame, howling with laughter

Monday, August 13, 2018

d121. Collection of severed heads, various states of decomposition, lacquered, mounted at eye level, arrangement leads through sanctum to bed/sarcophagus like seductive trail of rose petals (of evil)2. Giant stone coin takes up whole corner of chamber, currency of extinct weird titan civilization, used in previous epoch by evil sorcerer as down payment to Industrious Humanoids on dungeon construction, stolen back after murderous double-cross (as explained on informational plaque) 3. Patch of living turf, grass, decorative plants from Overlord's once-bucolic native land (now a blasted hellscape), bathed in magical sunlight, lovingly tended with nice set of garden tools4. Cheap trophy from adolescence for Best Eviscerator in conspicuously empty trophy case5. Bleached dragon skull with mother's fabulous magic sword still embedded in cheek, bits of mother still present between teeth, converted to hold candles as per chandelier, suspended above dining table 6. Entire party of adventurers taxidermied in group action pose on raised dais w/dramatic lighting7. Bathysphere from adjacent dimension, alien conditions maintained within, occasionally weird faces press up against the foggy porthole, used to be great conversation piece, now Overlord drapes guests' cloaks over it8. Overlord bronzed own hand, hung it on the wall after it was severed in unholy pact with famous demon (later replaced with animatronic prosthetic)9. Chunk of frozen lightning on pedestal, gift from over-amorous sorcerer acquaintance10. Enshrined in display case: rod and whip from evil father's child rearing kit11. Bodies of all dungeon pets preserved in walk-in freezer, organized in chronological order, get more horrible as time goes on12. Painstakingly detailed kill diary records history of Overlord's many, many murders, diagrams and hand-scrawled illustrations throughout, left out openly on coffee table to invite perusal

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Battered ruthlessly by the adventurers after losing initiative, the wizard goes down, writhes momentarily in an expanding pool of hit points on the spattered dungeon floor, takes in what must be a final breath, then gestures feebly for you to come closer and heed these final words....

d12
1. "The scroll...teleport coordinates to secret lair...they are trapped....save them...CHOKE"
2. "You must find my daughter...and destroy her before its too late....GAK!"
3. "My turncoat henchman has the keys to the dungeon....URRKKH!"
4. "Do not sell this ring under any circumstances! YOU MUSTN'T....blearghhh..."
5. "They will come for me now....THE DOORWAY! THE DOORWAY! uhhhhh....hhh"
6. "Harvest my brain and take it to the Tower of Science. They will reward you.....(shudder)"
7. "Fools! I was actually Lawful Good...hack...sputter"
8. "The open volume on the pedastal...close it quickly...don't look-k-k-kkkkhhhh"
9. "I'm sure you can't wait to search my body...well go ahead, thieves (explodes)."
10. "Excellent, excellent, the change comes over me now...immortality is mine (eyes turn red)."
11. "I've set my spell book to self destruct unless you answer its three pain-in-the-ass riddles....heh heh...eh...h"
12. "I must tell you (wheeze),,,the demon's (gasp) name..(cough)...his name is...(death rattle)"

Monday, August 6, 2018

d12
1. Polite leeches attempt to strike bargain, claim to provide healing of minor wounds in exchange for small blood meals
2. The Bathing Folk loll about listlessly up to their necks in the muck, fish with toes, only say stupid things
3. Methane powered rocket shrimp explode from surface at high velocity when started, then come down gracefully aided by spiraling propeller tails
4. Plumber gnomes wear hip waders, run pipes to and fro beneath the surface to channel mucks, mires, bogwaters, sloughs about for a purpose only they know
5. Hypo-lilies dissuade unwanted approaches with sudden spinning, strobing prismatic emissions
6. There is a protected cove to which a star descends from the heavens each morning to sleep, stars know well and can tell of the past, present, and future with equal alacrity
7. Hidden colony of gastronomes convinced the diverse bounty of the swamp provides greatest culinary adventure
8. Society of intelligent parasites occupies a great burrow, await the return of their ages-gone host, a colossal primordial crocodile, in the meantime they've developed agriculture
9. Sessile in maturity, thousand-tongued frogs are all that stand between biting fly-induced intolerable misery and certain death by biting fly
10. Bog horses: giant catfish follow a predictable daily migratory pattern, don't mind or notice human-sized creatures hopping on board
11. Swamp penguins of stark green and white fling themselves down muddy embankments, spear fish/fight off threats with one of three distinct beak shapes: fauchard, glaive, glaive-guissarme
12. The Mother of All Ducks

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Random Elf Powers
d12
1. Following a full 10 minutes of uninterrupted meditation, able to levitate 6" off ground in lotus position
2. Charm up to 1d4 squirrels, chipmunks, bunnies, mice, moles, voles, shrews, or hamsters (saving throw applies) once daily
3. Glean adequate nutrition from diet of rough vegetation as per grazing herbivore due to 1d4 extra stomachs
4. Adept at semi-useless slight of hand skills i.e. the old coin in the ear trick
5. Command human children once daily (saving throw applies)
6. Start small fires using only dry kindling and their mind
7. Speak with bugs despite their almost complete lack of anything interesting to say
8. Take on convincing human personae as per method actor, but must stay in character all the time like Daniel Day Lewis until insufferable
9. Appear to win arguments with humans using bewildering elf logic
10. When available, able to ride dolphins like Sea World act
11. Change skin, eye, hair color overnight at whim, may also grow super-long beard overnight for dumb laughs
12. Never have to visit the privy